Wasting time

“…I wish I could waste my time without wasting all yourrrrr tiiiiiiime.” She sang along to the lyric, windows down, while it was just starting to rain.

Her arm was stretched out the window, like always. She had an odd habit of watching the side mirror’s reflection of her fingers blowing in the wind while she was driving. Now she watched in the mirror as she put her hand up, palm out, fingers extended so that she could catch passing raindrops from the wind. Looking around her car, she checked to make sure nothing critical was getting wet and decided to continue driving, windows down. A red Malibu passed her on the left and she noticed that they had all of their windows open, too. She felt some form of solidarity.

It was raining hard enough to require windshield wipers, but she didn’t feel satisfied. She looked around the car to make sure there wasn’t anything that couldn’t get really wet, and then she slid back the cover to her sunroof and pushed the button marked “Slide.” As it opened, she caught a glimpse of herself in her rear-view mirror and gave a shrug. She slid her sunglasses off her face and over her hair to help keep her hair tamed with the extra wind… and rain.

The red Malibu rolled its windows up. She laughed.

The light was red. She leaned her head back and looked up out of the sunroof. The raindrops were big and she could see them as they were falling, causing her to squint and blink as each drop landed near her eyes. She knew this rain would pass in a matter of minutes, maybe less, and the heat and humidity of a Southern summer afternoon would quickly take its place. As the light turned green, she took the sunglasses off of her head and shook some of the rain out of her hair. She begrudgingly closed the sunroof as if someone was nagging her to do so while she was left unfulfilled and wanting more. She caught another glimpse of herself in her rear-view mirror and raised her eyebrows as drops of rain were still rolling down her face.

She wasn’t angry anymore. She wasn’t heartbroken either. She questioned for a moment if she was happy. She smiled. She looked at her reflection. Yes, that still felt good and looked normal. Happy? Sure, yes.  If not now, soon. She could be happy soon.